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Thinking Ahead To May

So far, 2026 has been a great year for piano. I want to continue the streak into May and June, and then sit down sometime in June to craft my goals for the second half of the year. Here's an update for my April progress, followed by some May goals.

Core

April has seen a lot of work in my Core categories:

Styles: I've learned nearly all of Ode to Joy and have regularly reviewed After You've Gone (though I've technically graduated from that one). Thanks to the LNRF challenge, I've put more daily time into OTJ than I would have otherwise, and there is a small possibility I'll have it ready for the next PWJ Recital.

Skills: I completed the first course of the Classical Analysis (Analysis Track), focusing on Bach's C Major Prelude. I'm now in the second course (Chopin's E Minor Prelude). I've neglected it in the past week, and I imagine it will be my main analysis focus for May, or at least early May.

(Dirty little secret: I learned this piece in middle school and hated it because it was so depressing. I don't hate it anymore, but I think part of the reason I'm neglecting it now is ... it's so depressing.)

Foundations: I finished the Lead Sheets Course! I also completed the Diatonic Chords course, which mostly review, but I still worked on it daily until I made it through all twelve keys. Next up is the Major ii-V-I course, which I'll probably start later this week. I'm excited about it. I learned my ii-V-I progressions years ago, but I have the feeling the PWJ course will take my understanding to a new level.

Creative

I finished You Are My Sunshine in March and have tried to start something new in April, dabbling with When the Saints Go Marching In and It's a Small World. But nothing's really clicked yet.

After playing at the assisted living facility last week, I got some requests for next time, so my focus seems to be shifting toward arranging one of those. For example, I've watched some of the waltz arranging courses on PWJ and would love to develop an arrangement of Edelweiss or Lara's Theme, both requests from last week. And to satisfy a request to play a Floyd Cramer style piece, I'm dabbling with an arrangement of Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain. Finally, someone requested I'll Fly Away, which is a long-standing "want to arrange in stride" dream of mine.

So I'm still in the exploring phase for my next creative project. I've set aside the Hey Fightin' Tigers idea for a while because I don't think I'm ready for it yet.

Maintenance

Thanks to some performance opportunities (TikTok Live, assisted living, Piano with Rebecca), I've done a decent job of keeping up with most of my maintenance pieces. I have too many to keep up with, but I'm trying. There are just so many other things to play and learn!

May Goals

My May goals are as follows:

  1. Have Ode to Joy ready for performance practice by the end of the month. That may be too late for the June PWJ recital, but I can play it for the assisted living facility in June.
  2. Make progress on at least one arrangement--Edelweiss, Lara's Theme, Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain, or I'll Fly Away. It doesn't have to be a YAMS-level project, but it needs to be something. (I'll Fly Away, whenever I do arrange it, will be a YAMS-level major project.)
  3. Make a final performance video of After You've Gone, with improvisation. (I know. I never did that. I need to do that.)
  4. Complete the Chopin course, however lugubrious, and share a video of me playing the E Minor Prelude.
  5. Start and complete the Major ii-V-I course.

I think these are modest goals. Ode to Joy is coming along well, and the arrangement possibilities (except I'll Fly Away) are much smaller in scale than YAMS, After You've Gone is finished except for the video, the Chopin course will be easy technically, and I'm already familiar with the ii-V-I progression in all keys.

May is going to be another good month for piano!

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